On the surface, it would seem that everything he had been doing for the past eight years had been leading up to what happened Tuesday night.

Still, it just never seems to happen how anyone expects it. This time, how could it have?

Jacke Healey, after all, had been passing the time by playing video games on his computer at his home in Tunkhannock.

His mother Rhonda sat beside him, and they chatted. A friend was there too. All the while, between the video game playing and the talking, the major league baseball draft tracker was running in the background on his computer.

There was no excited phone call when the former Lackawanna Trail standout found out he was going to be a professional ballplayer. There was no Houston Astros hat readily available to throw on his head. There was no certainty as to whether he'd be taken at all, by anybody, before the annual major league baseball amateur draft ended this week.

But after 26 rounds and 812 names appeared on that draft tracker with no good news to speak of, Healey finally saw his own.

"It was on the computer screen before anyone called me," Healey laughed. "I just saw my name had popped up there. I said to my mom, 'I just got picked up.' She jumped up and gave me a hug. Then, we called my dad. It was a great family moment."

From there, the 6-foot-2, 185-pound senior talked a lot about opportunity. How grateful he was to get one. How he had been feeling anxious since his final college season at Youngstown State wrapped up, because for the first time in his life, he wasn't assured of a chance to play baseball next season. How he was going to scour the independent leagues for open roster spots if he had to, because that's what players who feel they are good enough to play at the next level do to get there.

But sometimes, the best part of a story like this isn't the opportunity that lies ahead, it's the lessons learned that got someone to this point, the sacrifices made to become something better.

The fact of the matter is, it's fitting he found out how he did, that he celebrated with a hug and a sigh and the satisfaction of knowing there's another huge step to take. Because pomp and circumstance isn't exactly Healey's thing.

He gave up two years of basketball in high school to devote his life to baseball, and he threw himself into it with both hands. During the spring, he'd dominate on the high school fields during his years at Lackawanna Trail, launching homers even though he had the build of a slap hitter, positioning himself at shortstop like a veteran, throwing fastballs on the mound that most of his opponents struggled to even foul off.

But he was a superstar who didn't have an air of entitlement about him. During the summer, he worked in the visitor's clubhouse at what was then known as Lackawanna County Stadium, laundering the dirty uniforms, scraping the dirt from between the spikes, and helping to put out the pregame spread eaten by the players who came to town to play against the Red Barons.

"Even in Triple-A," Healey said, "those guys were living the dream. They were being given meals so they could play. People were cleaning their shoes."

It would seem like a great chance for a young, ambitious ballplayer to get a few tips on his batting stance. Only, Healey never asked for any of those.

When David Wright came through with Norfolk, Brandon Phillips suited up here with Buffalo and Justin Morneau did so with Rochester, Healey always paid more attention to attitudes.

He saw how pleasant, to everyone around him, Wright always seemed to be. He saw Morneau's no frills, no nonsense approach to the game. He saw how Brandon Phillips played the game with a child's enthusiasm and a veteran's focus.

"Brandon Phillips was a guy who you'd go up to and say, 'Do you want me to scrub your spikes?' And he'd say 'No. That's not your job,'" Healey said. "I mean, it was my job. I clean spikes and do laundry. Those guys though, they don't have the idea that anyone should have to do anything for them.

"They may never have taught me baseball things. But they taught me how to stay humble, how you have to just keep grinding."

The grind is what has gotten Healey this far.

He didn't get drafted out of high school, and he didn't have a big-time college scholarship offer to pave his way to getting drafted in the future. So he went to Potomac State College, a Division I junior college powerhouse in Keyser, W.V. - a town with one stop light, one gas station, a couple of decent restaurants and a passion for the baseball team that Healey called "awesome."

He hit .456 for coach Doug Little's team, slugged 11 homers, started all 45 games at shortstop and earned NJCAA second-team all-America honors in 2008.

He went on to Youngstown State the next season, played 50 games at shortstop and became the first all-conference player the Penguins have ever had at the position.

This season, he hit .293 and led the Penguins in doubles (17), homers (8) and RBIs (36).

And it took all of that - every bit of success on the field and learning off of it - to get his name flashed on that computer screen in the 27th round.

"I tried in high school to play hard, to do the best I could, and I never thought I was going to get drafted out of high school," Healey said. "But I knew that if you put yourself in a position to play at the junior college level, and then the Division I college level, and you play hard and act like a man and be responsible, you give yourself a good shot."

Rest assured, there are players out there with better tools. There are shortstops taken in the draft with more range and better arms. There are hitters who will project to be better run producers and hit for a higher average.

Still, Jacke Healey ventures into his professional career knowing exactly what it takes to be a professional. He has devoted his life to it.

In that way, he already knows what plenty of the 812 players picked before him may never learn.

Contact the writer: dcollins@timesshamrock.com

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